The only thing she said yes to anymore was Papa reading to her. He read to her as much as he could, every night until his voice gave out. She huddled under her covers, listening to the soothing sound of him, familiar and loving, telling her stories. He read her legends from every corner of the Daramon lands, like the Lord of the Wicked and his three curses or the Reborn Queen, and stories of the great empires of old, with their lonely princesses in silk slippers and hair that dragged on the floor.
He read her books from the enchanted land in the mirror, too, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Through the Looking Glass. Parsons could hardly believe they didn’t have magic in the Fallen Lands, if they came up with such stories. Papa swore they didn’t. He spoke to her about things more than he ever had, in those weeks. He was the only thing that was safe and solid.
Still she vowed that she would never leave her bedroom again. Even to her own nursemaid, she barely spoke.
Sometimes she crawled out of bed and gazed out the window. Her room was on the third floor, and looked out over the grandest neighborhood in Nalim Ima as well as the Palace of Blessed Wings where Lord Jherin lived in a tower. Lord Jherin didn’t come out of the tower anymore, except in a special veiled platform with a seat, for special occasions. He was so old and wise that he had evolved beyond humanity and could only spend his time talking to the spirit world. She had always found the sight of the tower enthralling, but especially now, because she thought she would probably never leave her tower again either.
The houses were newly built within the past ten years, each one different and detailed. The fashion was to build your house like they did in the Fallen Lands, so wealthy people no longer lived in gloomy stone residences with magical lights in the halls and their riches shown in woven wall hangings and painted dishes. Houses now were cozy with radiators and cushioned chairs, and stuff everywhere: game boards, calendars, musical instruments. The more important you were, the more stuff you had. Parsons had a lot of stuff, and none of it made her happy anymore.
Past the houses, the Palace of Blessed Wings was imposing, grand towers rising behind a wall. The palace complex was a world of its own, where all the people who worked for the High Sorcerer lived and supported his ideas with research. Beyond the palace were rocky hills and forest, where no one was supposed to go because of bears and wolves. Parsons wondered if the bears and wolves would be interested in her now. She wasn’t edible. Did wolves like to tear up Fanarlem girls the way dogs tore up shoes?
As if you would ever go to the woods. You won’t even leave the house.
It would be far better if you could die. Just let your soul slip away…and find Mama…
Weeks passed. At first, Papa suggested she might go back to school, but soon he gave up like he didn’t have the heart to press her.
When her grief dared to abate, she took out the photograph album from Paris. During the trip, Mother had been taken by the new craze for “Kodaking”. After her death, the photographs remained as haunting evidence of her life. Here were all the strange places with magical names: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs d’Elyssee, with Parsons’ smiling face posed with either Mother or Father, in front of all the beautiful buildings.
The photographs filled the front of the album and then came many more blank pages, waiting for all the places they would have seen but now never would.
Parsons forced herself to look at them until the scabs peeled off of her pain. She didn’t want Mother’s death to heal over.
After some time, she began to come downstairs for dinner, submit to rides in Papa’s automobile on weekends, and make the occasional trip to the library or a shop for a new book or toy. But she refused to see her friends or go anywhere where she might see other people. She had no heart for it. Actually, she didn’t have the heart for dinner or auto rides or new books either. She just didn’t want to worry Papa too much.
One night, she woke from a bad dream about the funeral—bad dreams came frequently these days. She slipped out of bed to find Papa, but he wasn’t in his bedroom.
That wasn’t really unusual. He often stayed up late working. She padded down the stairs in stocking feet to his workroom, and behind the door she heard two voices, both familiar. Uncle Nihem was visiting.
“It isn’t your fault,” her uncle said gently. “You did what any father would do.”
“I should have let her die. She’s so unhappy. She isn’t herself anymore. I was selfish to save her; I just couldn’t bear life without both of them…” Papa started crying.
Parsons went rigid. Papa was a gentle man, and yet, she had never heard him cry. Fathers didn’t cry. That seemed like a rule of life that shouldn’t be broken.
A surge of shame passed over her. Fathers shouldn’t cry, and daughters shouldn’t listen to them cry if they did. She heard Uncle Nihem saying, “It’s early days. I know you wouldn’t regret that she lived. And neither will she.”
“I don’t know,” Papa sobbed. “I don’t know.”
She tiptoed back up the stairs and returned to bed. She grabbed her bear and Bluette and clutched them both. Before the accident, Parsons already considered herself too old to speak to toys seriously, but now she whispered to them, “What should I do? I can’t go to school. They’re all going to laugh at me. I don’t really need to learn anything.”
Bear and doll looked back at her. Parsons imagined their eyes were a bit judgmental.
In the morning, Parsons got dressed properly, came downstairs to breakfast, and when she saw how happy Papa looked to see her, she mustered the courage to say she was ready to go back to school.
Her nursemaid and all the servants seemed as thrilled as Papa, and she realized how worried they had all been. That day Papa took her out to buy an entirely new wardrobe as a reward for bravery. Parsons had never cared much about her appearance before, because her mother didn’t, but she realized now that she needed to present a cool and collected image in front of her classmates. She thought of the Peacock General, so striking in black and red at Mama’s funeral. She chose things that were a little too sophisticated for a girl of eight: sharp dresses in dark colors, neat little hats with a single roguish feather, dressy shoes and tight gaiters that buttoned from ankle to knee, which were only worn by very rich, very prissy girls who had servants to fasten twenty buttons in the morning.
Parsons went to the most exclusive school in Nalim Ima, the Academy for Advancement. And she had always belonged there. Her parents were wealthy and favored and she was a smart girl among many other smart girls. Even at eight years old, she and her friends had already been in spirited competition with one another to be accepted into higher-level classes.
She hadn’t seen any of her friends since the accident, however.
“Remember, I’ve spoken to the principal,” Papa said as he drove her to school. “If you have any trouble, tell your teachers you need to go to the office. They know you are going through a hard time.”
Parsons shrugged. She had committed to this. She was determined not to run away even if someone teased her.
She felt very small in the automobile seat, and kept staring at her hands, clad in winter gloves. She was the same height as before, but her arms were skinnier.
He pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the school, joining a short row of carriages. Most of the children walked to school, but a few lived a distance away. Groups of children were on the sidewalk, talking and laughing, the same as they always did. She recognized some of them. There was Jin, in her blue coat. The Dawvry boys, still kicking around that red rubber ball like easily amused puppies.
Her insides churned so violently that she clutched her stomach.
“It’ll be all right, cub.” Papa patted her back. He understood she would not want to be hugged in front of people. “If it’s terrible, just come home. We’ll get you all the tutors you want.”
‘We’, he said. Who did that even mean anymore?
She nodded silently. She gripped his arm, battling
an urge to turn back to him and bury her face in his jacket. When she shut her eyes, it passed. She opened the automobile door, grabbed her books, stepped onto the sidewalk, and started walking without looking back.
“Parsons, is that you?” Jin cried. “Parsons!”
Jin ran up alongside her. Reluctantly, Parsons looked up and was subjected to the look of surprise—bordering on horror—that passed over Jin’s face.
Jin teared up. “Oh, Parsons…oh no. You poor thing.”
“Don’t cry.” Parsons picked up her pace.
“I’m sorry. It must’ve been just awful.”
Why did it have to be Jin first? Jin was a big-hearted dimwit.
“I’m so sorry about your mother,” Jin added.
Parsons clammed up. She would not cry in school. She clutched her books tight.
Jin opened the door for her. The Dawvry boys caught up to them now and held the door, waving them along. “Parsons,” they said, almost in unison.
“We weren’t sure we’d ever see you in school again,” Venn said.
Parsons walked in the door. Two more of her friends were in the hall, and in another moment she was swarmed by curious children. She could tell that none of them knew what to make of her or what to say, and once their hungry eyes had drunk in the sight of her strangeness, a few more of the girls fished out handkerchiefs to dab their eyes.
“Oh, poor Parsons! It’s so terrible!”
“I couldn’t believe it.”
“You look pretty nice, though. Not at all like other Fanarlem.”
Parsons started shivering all over. She had to drop her eyes to the ground. I’m going to cry. They’re all going to see it. I can’t. I can’t.
“Are you all right?” They huddled a little closer but not a single one of them touched her, like they were afraid of her new skin.
“What’s going on?” Miss Goshan, the math teacher, stepped into the hall and she put a hand on Parsons’s shoulder as the other children moved back. “Parsons, you have my class first, don’t you? Come on. Let’s get you settled in.” Parsons couldn’t remember what her first class was, but she didn’t protest. Miss Goshan, keeping one arm firmly around Parsons’ shoulders, led her down the hall, through the door, and right into a chair. She patted Parsons’ hand before returning to her own desk. The small gesture of kindness was enough for the tightness in Parsons’ throat to ease, but she was still shaking.
In the Academy, all children were placed in individual classes according to skill, so a precocious eight-year-old might attend the same class as a fourteen-year-old who struggled with the subject. Math was the one class where Parsons was not at all ahead. Mama was always trying to teach her privately, and she still struggled.
Today, she couldn’t even try. Multiplication meant nothing to her. She only made it through half the worksheet before class was dismissed. She had writing next, and none of her friends walked with her.
By lunch, she was in a haze of private agony. Her friends were afraid of her. How was anyone supposed to overcome that? And she had managed to stain her hand in writing class. By instinct, she went to the washrooms to try and scrub it out, but the minute she walked in the girls emerging from the row of toilets stared at her like, What do you need these for?
Fanarlem, of course, didn’t have those physical needs. When Parsons woke up from her transformation she was smooth between the legs just like her doll.
She rushed out the door again and pulled her gloves out of her pocket, putting them back on to hide the ink, but then putting her hands in her pockets to hide the gloves.
Soon Parsons had to go to lunch, although she didn’t even like food anymore. The food was offered buffet-style, in a generous variety, since the children in the school came from many parts of the world and had a variety of diets. Parsons took a slice of cake and nothing else, and started walking hesitantly to the end of one of the long tables where her friends always sat. They looked up at her, watching her approach, their eyes wide and nervous.
Parsons veered sideways. She tried to pretend she had always meant to eat alone, and settled at the end of the table in the area called “the wasteland”. This was where friendless newcomers and children who had quarreled with their friends found themselves.
That’s me now; might as well be. A friendless new kid. They knew me before. But I’m dead.
Parsons took off her gloves, stabbed the cake with her fork and forced a bite into her mouth. Her small shoulders slumped, and she didn’t even try to sit up straight. It was an impossible situation. She tried to imagine how she would react if one of her classmates came to school after losing her mother and becoming a Fanarlem. I wouldn’t say I was sorry. She would have heard enough of that. Maybe I’d ask her how it felt? No, that does sound pretty rude. I could just pretend it never happened. But that would be a hard thing to pretend.
She saw someone approach the wasteland, out of the corner of her eye, and looked up.
It was a Halnari girl.
She had to be new. No Halnari came to this school.
Adults talked about the Halnari a lot. They were of the telepathic Miralem race, but unlike all the other Miralem in the world, the Halnari were staunch allies of the Daramons, turning their back on the rest of their own people. Having telepathic people on their side was what allowed the Daramons to stand up to the other Miralem and build a stronger country.
Despite this, Parsons didn’t know any Halnari. They never visited her father. Sometimes they were at adult parties, but she wasn’t allowed at those. People didn’t always say the nicest things about them, either. They were like strange kids you played with only because they had better toys.
The Halnari were known for their great beauty and fragility. They shape-shifted themselves to conform to their own ideals, which meant that all their faces looked rather alike and their waists were unnaturally small. With the aid of spells, the hair of wealthy Halnari was grown out so that it touched the floor, even when braided. But more than anything, they were known for their oddly shaped feet, which they shape-shifted very narrow and clad in little heeled slippers, especially the women, which slowed down their gait to a careful stroll. They considered these feet to be the height of beauty, even though the rest of the world found them backwards and strange.
Parsons had never seen a Halnari girl before, but she was already a miniature Halnari adult, with the proper feet, the heeled slippers, long braids that were tucked up in loops so they wouldn’t drag, and long, loose sleeves that would cover her hands if she hadn’t been lifting a tray of food. Her dress was more simple than the Halnari women, though—it only reached mid-calf and was made of sturdy cotton instead of gauzy silks. The wide sash that nipped in her waist was not elaborately embroidered, but only had a trim border sewn on. Even Halnari parents, it seemed, didn’t want their children to soil expensive clothes.
The girl sat down, across and two seats over from Parsons. She started eating her meat stew in big heaping bites, and very slowly Parsons let her guard down and resumed picking at her cake.
“I’ve never seen you before,” the girl said.
Parsons’ head whipped up. “I’ve never seen you before. I’ve been going to this school since I was six.”
“Oh. Where were you?” The girl had a brash way of talking, beneath her prissy Halnari accent. Her voice seemed twice as loud as Parsons’.
“Out sick,” Parsons said.
“What’s your name?”
“Parsons Belvray.”
“Parsons. I heard people talking about you!” the girl said cheerfully. “It’s a funny name.”
“I was named after a ship,” Parsons said. “My parents are engineers.”
The girl covered her mouth with a gasp. “You’re the girl whose mother died in that explosion! I’m so sorry. That was the worst story I’ve ever heard. That’s why you’re a doll girl now.”
Parsons pushed her cake out of the way and got up from the table. She wasn’t really thinking anymore. Everything inside he
r was sad and shaking and terrified of all the world, of the way it would be from now on. She walked out of the lunchroom and into one of the empty hallways and then tried the door to the janitor’s closet. It was open and the floor was clean, so she shut the door on herself, plunging the room into darkness, found the floor with her hands, and sat down next to the mops and buckets to cry.
It was hard to have an ugly cry while remaining very quiet, but she did her best.
The hallway door opened outside. Parsons got quiet, wiping her dry eyes from instinct.
A hand tapped on the door.
“Parsons?” the Halnari girl asked gently. “I’m sorry.”
Parsons flung open the door. “Did you use telepathy to chase me down?” You couldn’t trust the Miralem, even if they were technically on your side. Everyone knew that.
“No! I—I just guessed you might hide in a closet. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry about your mother and everything and I think you look interesting.”
Parsons, who had always considered “interesting” a compliment, softened slightly. “I’m not going back in there today,” she said. “But I’ll eat lunch with you tomorrow.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Waiting for lunch to be over. I hate eating now anyway.”
“You don’t get cold, do you?” the girl asked.
“Not really.”
“We could play outside.”
“We’ll get in trouble,” Parsons said.
“No we won’t. Someone will yell at us to come inside, maybe.”
It was true that the school was slow to hand out actual punishment to the children, who were, by and large, rule-abiding and also had very influential parents. Parsons had always considered an adult yelling at you to stop doing something was the same as getting in trouble, however. But if this pretty little Halnari girl wasn’t afraid of being yelled at, Parsons was not going to be shown up.
The Vampire's Doll (The Heiress and the Vampire Book 1) Page 2
